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Stream simple Flash files from Cloud Files

Last updated on: 2016-04-14

Authored by: Rackspace Support

This tutorial describes how to stream media files from Cloud Files to a website. It
assumes that you have a video file uploaded to Cloud Files and that the container it is in
is public. It also uses Flowplayer, which is an open-source Flash video player registered
under the GPL.

Streaming

Cloud Files containers that are published and marked as public are delivered over the Akamai Technologies global content delivery network (CDN). For streaming flash files from your Cloud Files, Akamai provides pseudostreaming.

Pseudostreaming works as follows: When a video is initially loaded, the player reads and stores a list of seek points as part of the video’s metadata. These seek points are offsets in the video (both in seconds and in bytes) at which a new key frame starts. To accomplish this, Akamai’s streaming supports the HTTP Range header to identify those seek points. Real Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) streaming is not supported.

Pseudostreaming differs from what Akamai offers with their iOS streaming. iOS streaming is a form of adaptive streaming. The encoder (or a separate segmented process) produces H.264/AAC content in a sequence of small content segments, in MPEG-2 TS format (.ts). There is also a m3u8 index file that references these segments; in the case of live content, the M3U8 is continuously updated to reflect the latest content.

On line 3, replace http://c022320192.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/flowplayer-3.5.min.js with your version of this file.

On line 7, replace http://c022320192.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/video.flv with the location of your video file.

On line 12, replace http://c022320192.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/flowplayer-3.5.swf with your version of this file.

Save this XHTML file and run it from your local machine.

If it is working correctly, the Flash video loads quickly and streams. If not, check your code. If you are still having problems after that, call our Support team or submit a ticket through the Cloud Control Panel.